Two years of Lightspeed DMS data show that the lenders on a dealer’ s list differ in what they charge and which buyers they sign, and that the youngest buyers are concentrated at a handful of them.
12 • November 2026 • Powersports Business
FINANCE www. PowersportsBusiness. com
Finance companies: Who is winning the deal, and who is signing it in powersports?
Two years of Lightspeed DMS data show that the lenders on a dealer’ s list differ in what they charge and which buyers they sign, and that the youngest buyers are concentrated at a handful of them.
BY LINDSAY ELKINS
• AFTERMARKET BUSINESS DEV., LIGHTSPEED DMS
Across the 1,510 U. S. powersports dealerships in this study, the lenders financing their deals turned out to be far from interchangeable. Beyond charging different prices, they sign noticeably different kinds of buyers, and the youngest generation is landing with some of them much more often than with others.
FOUR TYPES OF LENDER Hundreds of lenders appear on those contracts, but every one of them falls into one of four groups( Figure 1). Independent specialty lenders such as Roadrunner and Sheffield finance the largest share at a little over a third of all deals, while the manufacturers’ own finance arms known as captives account for about a quarter. There are only 10 captives in the data, yet together they finance more deals than every credit union combined. Credit unions and banks divide the rest almost evenly.
BY THE NUMBERS
Lightspeed powersports data, September 2024 to August 2026
$ 12.1B In Financed Loans
377 Lender Names
796,135
Financed Deals
1 in 5 Buyers Are Gen Z
1,510
Dealerships
41.9 Avg. Buyer Age
Counts financed deals only, not cash deals or loans that buyers arrange on their own.
On price, the four groups line up in a clear order, from credit unions at the low end to independents at the high end. A buyer pays about $ 1,400 more in finance charges with an independent than with a credit union on the same $ 12,000 five-year loan. Banks, which make the biggest loans of the four, come in second-cheapest on that same loan.
WHO SIGNS THE CONTRACT Buyers financed through BMW Finance, Huntington National Bank and Harley-Davidson’ s Eaglemark Savings Bank average around 46 years old, the oldest among the larger lenders( Figure 2). Aqua Finance, One Main Financial and Yamaha Motor Finance sign the youngest buyers at the opposite end, and Aqua’ s buyers are nearly 11 years younger than BMW’ s at
Figure 1. The four types of lender. Share of financed deals by lender type, with the typical rate, loan size, term and buyer age.